


Picking Up the Pieces

by elisewrites



Series: Beautiful Wreckage [12]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, F/M, POV Rio (Good Girls), Protective Rio (Good Girls), Relationship Discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22530952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisewrites/pseuds/elisewrites
Summary: It's not like she's incapable of accepting help, as those who are close to her seem to think.It's just that she can't remember a time in the past twenty years where asking for help didn't come back to bite her in the ass.It's perfectly reasonable for her side-step the risk of having another favor dangled over her by a string, guiding her back behind the fence, lest she forget her own dependence on the person holding the stick.Sometimes she feels stretched so thin, doing everything on her own, she thinks she could fall on a shard of glass and it would shred her to pieces.It's okay, though.She just makes sure she doesn't trip.
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Series: Beautiful Wreckage [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1387072
Comments: 6
Kudos: 82





	Picking Up the Pieces

For Beth Boland, baking has always been an infallible method of distraction.

She finds serenity in the familiar pattern of it—of mixing together components of a recipe that create something greater than themselves when treated a specific way; when exposed to other elements that have the ability to better its individual form.

She’s hunched over the island counter, now, her most trusty cookbook flipped open to _Holiday Treats_ as she runs through which ingredients she knows for certain she’s got on hand.

_Milk, eggs, butter, flour, sugar, chocolate—_

Chocolate. She’s missing the key ingredient for the majority of the options in front of her, and she knows she’s got to be short on eggs, too, given that the kids wiped out half her stock with their request for omelets last week. 

She could opt for sugar cookies, instead, she thinks. Surely she’s got the necessary ingredients to whip up some decorative homemade icing for the kids to dabble in, too. 

Beth breathes out a heavy sigh, curling a piece of hair that’d fallen loose from her bun behind her ear as she considers her options. 

A moment later the back door is being yanked open behind her with an unnecessary amount of force, the blinds smacking against the doorframe like a warning shot. Beth doesn’t even have to turn around to know it’s Annie (although now that she knows Rio broke in through that door using something that _wasn’t_ her spare key, she should really be more vigilant), immediately reprimanding her boisterous entrance with an insistent _shush_.

Annie plops down in the seat across from Beth, setting her bag and keys on the counter as she does so. Her brows are furrowed when Beth finally spares her glance—partially in confusion, but mostly in indignation.

“What’s got your panties all twisted up on this fine morning?” Annie asks, wriggling a bit as she makes herself more comfortable. Beth levels her with an apathetic gaze, nose scrunching at Annie’s distasteful choice in words.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replies, pointedly returning her attention to the assortment of recipes staring up at her. She eliminates any options that call for chocolate (since she can’t find the will to take a trip to the grocery store, especially now that Annie has made an appearance), flipping to the next page that, instead, outlines numerous varieties of sugar cookies.

Annie clearly isn’t deterred by her dismissal, though. She sets her forearms up on the counter, knitting her fingers together as she eagerly shuffles closer to the counter’s edge.

“Wait, don’t tell me your attitude has to do with gangfriend’s little _home visit_ the other night,” she presses, tone far too smug for Beth’s liking. Her head whips up at that, feeling somewhere close to a deer caught in headlights as Annie grins at her, seeming satisfied with having gained her attention.

“I’m still offended that you let him crash our wine night, by the way,” Annie adds, popping an eyebrow at her sister and receiving an eye-roll in response. “What was so important that he needed to drop by—sorry, no, _break in—_ half past midnight?”

Beth can feel the flush spread across her cheeks at the scrutiny in Annie’s tone. There _hadn’t_ been a reason, after all—not one that could be condensed into a sentence or two of explanation; certainly not one that she wants to delve into with her sister—and Beth finds herself at a loss for a suitable answer to satiate Annie’s prying with.

Apparently, her lack of a response is telling enough for Annie to read right through. Her mouth falls open a moment before she’s slapping a hand over it, attempting to smother the giggles that are now tumbling from her lips and slipping through her fingers. Despite this, her eyebrows are drawn together as she studies Beth’s expression, her own alternating between the three stages of amusement, disbelief, and concern.

“Are you guys boning again?” She asks, dropping her voice a few octaves as she leans over the counter like there’s a chance she could be overheard. Beth sets her hands on the counter with a deep sigh, bracing her weight against the cool surface as she levels Annie with a look of exasperation.

“Can we not do this right now?” Beth replies, attempting to implement an air of authority to her tone that she doesn’t have the energy to impart at the moment. It’s clear that Annie won’t be relenting on this, though, as she flops back into her seat with a look of astonishment, leveling Beth with an unnerving stare.

“Look, Beth, I get that we’re not working for him anymore, and that you guys have this like, weirdly primal connection that is _definitely_ better than anything you ever had with _Deansy_ , but are you sure this is a good idea after everything that’s happened?” Annie asks, softening her tone as she looks Beth over with wide, worried eyes. Beth bristles slightly at it—at the reminder of the drastic contrast between her only two intimate relationships, the reminder of just how _insane_ she’s felt allowing herself to get close to him again—at the genuine concern in Annie’s voice and expression that so rarely outweighs her bull-headed righteousness.

“It’s not like, a regular occurrence. We weren’t…” Beth uselessly flails a hand out in front of her, drawing a blank on how to phrase it—doesn’t even really know what _it_ she would be referring to if she could. “Not since, you know…” 

And, sure, she can admit that it wouldn’t be the worst idea to talk to someone about the lingering guilt surrounding all that’s happened with Rio, but all be damned if her first choice for such a decision would be Annie.

“This is what I’m talking about, Beth. You can’t even say it out loud,” she tells her gently, stretching an arm over the counter to set her hand on top of Beth’s. She inhales a shaky breath, attempting to keep the emotions that have been sneaking up on her since yesterday morning at an arm’s length; far from the perceptive gaze of her baby sister. 

“You’ve gotta talk about it. I didn’t know about your postpartum until—“

Beth cuts in. “That’s not fair. This is _way_ different.”

Annie looks down at their hands a moment where hers rests over Beth’s, and she squeezes gently. “I know. I’m just saying that when you’re—when you’re _grieving_ , you think you’re doing what’s best by shutting everyone out, but I—” 

Annie stops, ripping her gaze from Beth as she takes a fortifying breath. She looks back a moment later with a deep sigh, bracing more of her weight against the counter. 

“What I’m _trying_ to say is that you can talk to me, Beth. I’ll save the jokes for another time,” she promises, smirking lightly, though there’s more worry than humor behind it. “I can’t help if you don’t let me in.”

Beth warbles out a breath, the rows of recipes blurring beneath her teary eyes because she can’t believe she’s even considering talking about this with anyone but Rio—it’s between him and her, after all. Although she still can’t fathom why, Rio’s made it clear that he’s forgiven her—she worries that it would be beating a dead horse to rehash every ugly part of their falling out when they’ve only just begun to pick up the pieces of it.

Beth’s gaze flits back to Annie, and the raw emotion she sees in her expression is instantaneously disarming—not just the concern, but the _fear_ of whatever Beth has bottled up and stored away.

It reminds her of a much younger Annie—one that was a little more naïve and a lot more timorous as she’d stood back in the doorway of their mother’s room, watching the two of them with an inquisitive gaze as Beth tried to talk her into getting groceries instead of sleeping another day away—and it’s too much, the thought of allowing Annie to carry on with the burden of her worry resting heavy on her shoulders.

Beth nods her head at the couch, then, abandoning her recipes for a bottle of red from her wine rack as Annie hops down from her seat. 

_It’s ten in the morning_ , she registers distantly, shaking her head to herself before grabbing the neck of the bottle and following Annie into the living room.

Once she’s poured them both a generous serving and has settled into the couch cushions, Annie’s feet propped up on the coffee table and Beth’s legs tucked beneath her, Beth finds herself at a loss, yet again, on where to start. Annie wasn’t even fully convinced Rio was alive until the night before last, and Beth is in no way prepared to relay their latest encounter to _Annie_.

So, she starts from the beginning. 

She starts from the night she’d cracked open her back door to find her string of pearls there, dangling from the knob like an ironic sort of omen. Recalls how she’d broken down then and there on her doorstep, clinging to the smooth little beads like they were the last thing tethering her fractured sanity to reality.

Once she gets past that first night, the words come at a pace she has no control over. 

She walks Annie through their earliest exchanges—the ones that had zero premeditation, nor any concrete reason for occurring. She recounts them for what they truly were—a result of the connection they’d continuously relented to over and over again despite the carnage they’ve found themselves in because of it. 

Just—

All of it.

She takes in stride the gleam of rage in Annie’s eyes when she fills her in on Dean’s latest power play—how he’d _interrogated_ his own children, essentially, drawing out of them that she’d met with Rio in the park again the day she’d returned the key to his storage unit; righteous in his outrage towards the presumption that she’d begun to pick things up where she left off—but really, it’s the look of modest approval that gets her when Beth informs Annie about the brief car trip they took in the hours following. She doesn’t provide too many details about it—doesn’t bring up the location of the docks because even though she may not know as much about Rio as she’d like to, she’s perceptive enough to pick up on the fact that they held some special meaning to him. Beth allows herself to be selfish with it, carefully omitting the vulnerabilities he’d reserved for her and keeping them for herself.

(And if she also skips over the part where she’d played stakeout in the parking lot of _their_ bar—betting her time and her dignity that he’d be there, knowing that she would settle for crashing any potential meeting of his just to get him alone; watching him pull out of the parking lot in the same moment that she’d switched her own car out of park—well, there’s no real harm in prioritizing the major details.)

By the time she gets around to the night before last, Annie is red-eyed and a little weepy, pitching forward in her seat a little when Beth begins to relay the conversation that led up to the kiss. And, okay, she doesn’t tell Annie _everything—_ figures her overactive imagination will already do enough damage with the information it’s been given. She leaves Annie to fill in the blanks herself, remaining willfully silent when she pries for further details. 

Annie surrenders eventually, slumping back against the couch with a huff.

When all is said and done, though—Beth observing Annie as she discreetly wipes the remnants of her leaky eyes on her shirt sleeve while pouring herself another generous serving of wine—she _does_ feel better, like the boulder of guilt that’s been weighing down on her heart has been grated down into a less lethal force.

“Can I be totally honest with you?” Annie asks once they’ve reached a lull in the conversation. Beth nods easily, feeling loose and at ease now that she’s got more than a few drinks in her system.

“The entire time we’ve known him, he’s been a pain in our asses. Yours more than mine, but still,” she starts, her frankness earning her a smirk from her sister, though Beth reserves her comments and turns to better give Annie her attention when her demeanor shifts into something more solemn.

“He’s not a good person. He’s hurt you more times than I can count at this point, and those times aren’t even comparable to how wrecked you were when you still thought he was dead.”

Beth can’t help but flinch at the reminder and of course Annie clocks it, shuffling closer to her so she can drop a hand to her knee and squeeze it in consolation. Beth’s gaze returns to her sister (though she doesn’t remember breaking it), carefully examining the look of remorse in her features—in the furrow of her brows, the wide set of her eyes; the thin line of her lips. She remains silent, though, and Annie takes this as her cue to go on.

“I’m not trying to rub salt in the wound, here. Really. It’s just that— just _knowing_ him has landed us in such deep shit and we’re finally digging our way out. I just want you to know that if you’re seeing him, for real this time, you have to have a _very_ good list of reasons for why it’s worth possibly getting hurt again.”

Beth sighs deeply, rolling her head back against the sofa cushions and trying to muster up any sort of response, but Annie’s speaking again before she can.

“I need to know that you’re safe, Beth. I can’t stop you from seeing him and, shit, I know my approval isn’t exactly _valuable_ given my track record, but I need to know that you’re doing what’s best for _you_ , here. If being with him—or, you know, whatever it is you call this thing between you two—really makes you happy, then I’ll keep my opinions to myself.”

Annie falls quiet, now, as her thoughts settle over the two of them like a thick layer of fog. Beth blinks a few times, feeling the burn of hot tears welling up behind her eyelids, and she does her best to mask it, shaking her head vacantly as her grip tightens around the stem of her wineglass. 

There’s too many emotions for her to name in this moment, wrapping around her throat and squeezing before she can scrounge up enough clarity to sort through them. Vaguely, she feels Annie’s grip tighten on her knee, and the pressure is somewhat grounding as she clings to the thread of strength that’s keeping her composure sewn together. One pull, she knows, could unravel her completely.

“It does,” Beth croaks, settling a hand on top of Annie’s and giving her a reassuring squeeze in return. “I’ll be careful."

Annie breaks out into a close-lipped grin, her wet eyes gleaming with pride as she nods adamantly.

“That’s all I need to know,” she whispers, voice breaking just as Beth’s had.

Annie lurches forward, then, dropping her glass to the coffee table before enveloping her in a hug. Beth wraps her arms around her little sister, glass still clutched in one hand while the other clutches Annie’s shoulder as though she’s afraid she’ll slip through her fingers.

Beth has no idea how long they hold each other for, her tears spilling from her cheeks and staining the back of Annie’s shirt. When they part, though, Annie grins up at her fondly, and Beth can sense the crude joke resting on the tip of her tongue before she even opens her mouth.

“Actually, there’s one other thing,” Annie clarifies, perking up with a quick chuckle as Beth eyes her warily. “How does his big dick energy compare to the real thing?”

Beth’s resounding groan is practically that of an animal’s as she slumps back against the couch, her cheeks turning about eighty different shades of scarlet as Annie breaks into a fit of laughter beside her.

| |

Rio knows that things with Elizabeth are officially out of his control when his boys begin to refer to him as _whipped_ under their breaths on a near daily basis.

It’s not that he minds it, exactly. Not as much as he might’ve if they’d done so a few months prior, but still—he doesn’t fancy the idea of his feelings being printed on his sleeve for everyone else to comment on. It’s the prospect of any part of his personal life being transparent enough for others to pick up on that sets him on edge.

Still, he never dignifies their baiting with anything more than a shoulder shove or an elbow to the ribs; plays it like they’re in on something he isn’t so they don’t start asking questions he isn’t prepared to answer.

The term briefly crosses Rio’s mind a few days after his night with Elizabeth—rises from the back of his mind like some sort of sardonic reality check as he’s ordering for the two of them at a coffee shop down the street from his apartment. 

After spending the night (and the majority of the next morning) in her bed for the first time since she cut ties with him and their business, he knew his prior routine of putting distance between the two of them for a few weeks wasn’t going to work anymore. He hasn’t got the slightest damn clue of how he’s supposed to navigate what they are to each other now, or if he’s insane for visualizing a life with a partner who shot him, but he doesn’t think he can stand the idea of not having her in it, either. 

Somewhere along the way of his thought-ridden drive, the cracked pavement and apartment buildings give way to scenic pathways of green and picture book residences. Rio parks across the street from Elizabeth’s place, sweeping his gaze up and down the streets of her neighborhood as he strides towards the back of her house, a steaming paper cup in each hand. The entire block itself looks like it’s been cut out of some glossy real estate magazine—the hedges lining each driveway neatly trimmed into symmetrical forms and every picket fence a blinding coat of white. His awareness of it makes him grin to himself a little, just as he had when she’d first drawn attention to the way their lives existed in drastic counterpart to one another. 

That’s what they were— _are_ , after all. Two people, never meant to cross paths, set on a catastrophic collision course—and yet back then, seated in the passenger seat of her minivan that smelt faintly of disinfectant wipes and floral perfume, he’d doubted how a connection like theirs could’ve been a mistake.

Now, standing on Elizabeth’s patio, Rio balances one cup on top of the other, freeing one of his hands to turn the knob of the back door. He hears the clank of the gears shifting as the door pops open, and he’s vaguely pleased at the idea that she’d left it open for him—that is, until he pushes it open further, his gaze sweeping across the interior of the house and landing on a pair of round, cerulean blue eyes peering at him over the top of a sofa chair.

A wave of confusion washes over him as he crosses over the threshold, stepping deeper into the house and easing the door shut behind him. Her youngest, Jane, continues to watch him like a hawk as he does so, not so much as blinking as he sets both of the paper cups on the counter next to him. He raises an eyebrow, daring her to launch the interrogation that he knows every kid has a knack for forming when Elizabeth’s voice drifts down from the second floor, drenched in exasperation as she calls for her daughter.

“Down ‘ere,” he answers instead. It’s only a second or two before the room is filled with the sound of footsteps rapidly descending the staircase, and Rio would be grinning something fierce if the circumstances were different. As it is, the fact that her daughter is here, eyeing him curiously from her new perch on the arm of the sofa, instead of at school is enough to temporarily suspend his amusement.

Elizabeth reaches the bottom of the staircase in six seconds flat and when she comes into view, it’s almost reflexive—the way his gaze dips and travels over her soft, disheveled form like he’s double-checking the directions to his own home. A pale blue sweater hugs her torso like a second skin, the hem of it finishing just below the waistband of her blue mama jeans. When his eyes wander up to her face, she looks just as stunned to see him as she does relieved. A fond smile pulls at the corner of her lips as she pauses,considering—then, she pads in his direction, only tearing her gaze from his when she moves to crouch next to the sofa, leveling her gaze with her kid’s.

“Hey, sweetheart. Mommy needs your help with something _really_ important,” Elizabeth tells her softly, her voice nearly drifting into a whisper as Jane fixes her wide eyes and full attention to her mother. Rio tilts his head as he regards them, noting the controlled adjustment Elizabeth has made to her previously frantic tone in an effort to placate her daughter, clearly angling for her compliance. 

Rio watches the set of emotions that play out across Jane’s face as Elizabeth lays out for her what it is she needs done, her voice so soothing and gentle that he only picks out bits and pieces of her request. Jane’s head bobs sharply in adamant confirmation, the brunette sheet of her silky straight hair swaying with the motion before she pitches forward into Elizabeth, throwing her arms around her neck in an embrace. It’s odd, then—the foreign sensation that dawns on him as he watches Elizabeth envelop her daughter in a hug; the sense that he’s intruding on a moment that he wasn’t meant to be a part of.

His eyelids feel heavy as he blinks over at them, watching Jane peel away from the embrace and steal up the stairs before Rio is able to put a name to the feeling, though the twinge of warmth that’s left swirling in his chest after she’s gone isn’t unpleasant. 

Elizabeth’s eyes track her daughter’s skittish movements, following them until she’s out of sight before she properly fixes her gaze on Rio. He’s moving as soon as she does so, reaching her in three easy strides so that the back of her legs hit the arm of the couch behind her, but he leaves a small pocket of space between them, his gaze sweeping over her features in a familiar show of affection. She returns it in kind, and he watches her gaze drop to trace the line of his jaw and the curve of his lips before meeting his eyes again. Her lips part silently for a moment like she’s itching to ask him something, but she hesitates, and he observes the shift in her expression when she switches gears, the frantic distress that she’d pushed aside now creeping back into her expression.

“Kenny’s sick. He woke up in the middle of the night, vomiting, and now he’s burning up, so I have to keep him home, but —”

She cuts herself off, expelling a sharp, exasperated breath as her eyes focus on something over his shoulder. She wrings her bare ring finger—a nervous tick that draws attention to one of the few similarities he’s found her to share with her sister.

“Dean was supposed to pick them up half an hour ago,” she explains cautiously, like she’s wary of how he’ll react. Rio promptly schools his reaction—masks the prickly edges of his irritation with an apathetic gaze. 

“The kids are supposed to be at school in five minutes, and he isn’t answering his cell,” she continues weakly, though he senses that a fresh wave of anger has begun to poke at her frazzled nerves beneath her hysteria. “I don’t know if Kenny would even be able to make it to the car in his state, and I can’t keep all of them home again like I did last week.” 

Rio bites his tongue, withholding any questions about this being a repeat offense of Dean’s as he wordlessly considers her for a few seconds, his mind already ticking over their options.

“So load ‘em up in your mama van. I’ll stay here,” he decides, sharpening his gaze when her lips part with what he can only expect to be an objection and beating her to the punch.

“You can’t hold it all, darlin’,” he rasps, softening his tone and furrowing his brow as he gazes down at her. “Lemme take care of ‘im.”

Elizabeth’s eyes dart between his own as a few beats of silence pass between them, reluctance still tugging at her features when she breaths out a heavy sigh. 

“I can’t ask you to do that,” she replies, but her tone is yielding, not quite convinced of her own opposition, and he knows she won’t fight him on this for much longer.

“You ain’t, and neither am I,” he insists, unable to help himself as he reaches out to curl a limp strand of hair behind her ear. She immediately leans into his touch, swaying slightly before him, and it almost seems subconscious when she begins to nod against him.

She takes a fortifying breath and releases it heavily in the space between them, the warm air hitting his neck as he settles his palm at the nape of hers. He applies a slight pressure there, offering her his silent reassurance before he reluctantly pulls away and jerks his chin towards the staircase.

“I’ll send ‘em down, yeah? Make sure they got everythin’.”

Elizabeth nods again, and he feels her gaze on him as he backs away from her, tracking his movement through the archway and up the staircase until he’s out of her line of sight.

As soon as Rio reaches the top of the staircase, he’s met with what looks to be a game of tag between the middle members of Elizabeth’s pack. Danny bursts from one of the bedrooms, clutching something in his hands and casting a hasty glance over his shoulder for his sister. Emma emerges a moment later from the same open doorway, the sheet of her silky brown hair rushing like a cap behind her as she sprints after her brother. Rio raises an eyebrow at the display, pausing with one hand on the railing as he waits for his presence to dawn on them.

As Danny’s redirecting his gaze in front of him, he catches sight of him, his feet abruptly skidding to a halt in the middle of the hallway. Rio only has a second to be pleased at the obedient reaction, as Emma continues barreling towards her brother before she can catch herself. Rio acts instantly, dipping forwards to curl an arm around Emma’s torso before she can collide with the body in front of her. She gasps a little, startled, and Rio sets his other hand lightly on her upper back, steadying her until she’s standing upright with both feet planted firmly on the floor.

Two pairs of wide eyes blink up at him, then, though they don’t appear to be alarmed by his sudden appearance. As Rio pulls away from Emma, she raises a small hand to brush at a strand of hair that’s fallen over her eye, using her wrist to do so. It’s inefficient, though, and she repeats the motion a few times before Rio sighs a little, crouching down to her height so he can curl the dark lock of hair behind her ear.

She grins a little, then, giggling, stretching a hand out to him to trace the lines of the inked bird on his neck. 

She’d done it once before, when Elizabeth had first starting bringing them ‘round the park during their meets—she’d instantly reached out to grasp at her daughter’s wrist, gently curling it away from him and into her personal space. Emma had glanced up at her mother with a confused expression, and Rio’d heard Elizabeth explain to her a bit later—tone hushed, when she’d presumed Rio was out of earshot—that it was impolite to touch other people without asking first.

Emma had insisted that in her art class, she liked to trace the shapes and patterns that other kids around her would create. Elizabeth had gone with it, insisting that it’s respectful to look, rather than touch, unless she’s allowed to. Emma had conceded, then, and had apologized to Rio the week after with no prompting from Elizabeth.

Rio had assured her that he didn’t mind; that it was good for a kid her age to be curious.

Now, he waits patiently for Emma to drop her fingers from his neck, his lips turning up when he shifts his gaze towards Danny to see him studying Rio carefully. 

“‘Ey, l’il man. ‘Member me?” Rio asks softly, setting his elbows on his bent knees and lacing his fingers together loosely. Danny nods adamantly, his head of shaggy blonde hair shifting as he does, and Rio grins a little bit, nodding his head in kind.

“That’s good,” he replies quietly, his gaze flickering between the two of them, ensuring he has their attention. “Now, I need your help right quick. I’m gonna take care of your brother while your ma takes you to school, but first, we gotta make sure all o’ you are packed up n’ ready to go. Sound good?”

There’s a unanimous nod from both of them, and he grins a little wider, clapping his hands together lightly before rocking back on his heels and rising to his full height again.

And really, he thinks, that wasn’t as difficult as he’d thought it would be. Danny and Emma immediately veer off towards their respective rooms, rushing with bouts of laughters, and Rio thinks it must be the consequence of being kept inside a half hour longer than they’re used to. Though, he’s knows that Marcus always gets a thrill from being assigned a semi-serious task, especially if it takes place during circumstances that are outside of his normal routine.

Rio briefly dips into the boys’ room, his eyes falling on Kenny’s form where he’s curled beneath the covers. His round, sunken eyes are closed, his sweaty bangs sticking to his pallid forehead while his raspy, labored breaths fill the room like white noise. Danny is in the middle of shoving a picture book into his backpack on the bed parallel to Kenny’s, and Rio quietly gestures for him to quicken his pace. Danny’s eyes dart to his brother for a second, his small, heart-shaped face pinching with worry before he resumes his packing. He shoves one last item into his bag before quickly zipping it, throwing it over his shoulder, and inching towards the door and then past Rio into the hallway.

Rio casts a lingering glance at the fatigued form of Elizabeth’s youngest—watches his chest rise and fall with his semi-irregular breathing before flicking off the light, taking a step back and easing the door towards him, leaving it open just a crack.

By the time he’s corralled the girls from their bedroom, as well, all three of the kids have beat him down the stairs to where Elizabeth is waiting in the kitchen. As he reaches the foot of the stairs and veers into the living room, he catches sight of her near the side door, handing a bright blue lunchbox to Emma before swiping her own purse from the island counter. 

Rio stops in the archway of the living room, pushing a shoulder up against the wall and crossing his legs beneath him as his gaze roams over her lazily. As though she senses his attention on her, she turns her head in his direction, a dense array of emotions crossing her face at the sight of him. Most of them slip away before he has the chance to decipher them, but he takes the glimpse of gratitude he _did_ catch in stride.

She provides her kids with a few reassurances as she ushers them towards the front door, pulling her keys from her purse as she does so, and he watches her go silently. She casts a glance back at him as she’s nearing the door, her kids pouring out of it before her, and she pauses—offers him a slight curve of her lips and a curt nod, saying exactly what she needs to without saying anything at all.

He juts his chin up at her briefly, and Elizabeth turns away, slipping through the door after her kids and shutting it softly behind her.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi friends! Believe it or not, I'm alive!  
> I can't thank you all enough for how incredibly loving and patient you've been throughout my time on this platform. This series has become incredibly important to me, and has grown to be something I'm truly proud of. I've always been hard on myself when it comes to the things I create, and I still believe that the writing I've shared with you all could be better, but the feedback from this community has made it easier to cut myself some slack and focus on loving what I do, not perfecting it.  
> That being said, my updates have been very heavily spaced for the same reason. I actually made the decision to split this one into two separate parts (it's at 11,000 words and I still have two more scenes to write, lol), so that will be following this one in the next few days. For as long as I've been working on it, I think it's safe to say that this will be a satisfactory ending to this series.  
> And in case any of you are feeling a bit disappointed, I am absolutely wrapping it up with some good ol' soft smut.  
> Besides, in the words of our favorite single mother: I have some pretty dope stuff in the works right now. I think that ending this series will be a good opportunity for me to pursue my other ideas for them without having anything smoking on the back burner.  
> Until the next one, lovelies!


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